Monday, April 2, 2012

You posted your Newsletter 3 to landowners today. It's another one-way communication, from you to us. If your online Journal were willing to post real responses, or if project "liaisons" were willing to give real answers, we would not be using this blog to tell you our reactions to what you have written. But you have never been willing to enter into honest dialogue with those who oppose your project. Your representatives pull out of public sessions if they discover that they must share the floor with opposition members for an actual debate. The most recent example is the upcoming Seacoast Republican Women's meeting in Portsmouth this month. Mike Skelton and Anne Bartosewicz retracted their early commitment to participate to avoid facing the opposition.

So here is what we would say to you about each of the four sections of your Newsletter 3.0 -- if we could.

"Checking In with Landowner Outreach Specialists"

Your attempt to humanize your sales people, whom you call "landowner outreach specialists," with personal interest stories is irrelevant to us. These are your employees, not our friends. Your piece belongs in an in-house publication along with shout-outs for service awards and retirements, notices about company picnics, and such. We do not hate your sales people per se; indeed, we have no interest in them one way or the other. We hate what they do for a living. Wouldn't you? They work to take our land, heritage, livelihoods, and assets from us. They are the "face" of the project that you push to the front so that Anne Bartosewicz and other "important" project personnel do not have to deal with the inconvenience of people like us, who don't buy what you are trying to sell. Take it from us, you can scrap this effort next time.

"Project Update"

You tell us about your progress in buying up land in upper Coos County. Why tell us this? Your newsletter is addressed to people with existing rights-of-way, not to those in upper Coos County. What owners on the Lower 140 want to know is how you will update your figures about "most common tower heights" in the post-HB 648 world. On your website, before 648 was passed into law, you listed 13 towns in which you wanted to expand rights-of-way for a total of some 20 miles, and you give a "most common tower height" for each town based on those desired expansions.

Town

Length of ROW to be expanded (in miles)

Most Common

NP Tower Heights

(in feet)

Allenstown

2.6

110

Bethlehem

0.1

90

Bridgewater

0.7

90

Campton

0.13

90

Canterbury

0.2

90

Concord (Preferred)

0.76

85

Concord (Alternate)

1.7

110

Deerfield

5.23

110

Franklin (Preferred)

4.4

85

Franklin (Alternate)

0.6

85

Hill (Preferred)

0.6

85

New Hampton

0.78

85

Northfield

1.54

95

Pembroke (Preferred)

1.44

85

Pembroke (Alternate)

5.6

105

Woodstock

0.34

85

Now that you have no access to eminent domain to take land for these expansions, what are the true "most common tower heights" for these thirteen towns? (And, while we're on the subject, what does "most common tower height" mean?) How tall will the tallest towers really be in Allenstown, Concord, Deerfield, where you had already admitted to 110' when you thought you could take land by eminent domain to expand ROWs? These are the kinds of things landowners want honest updates on.

"NH Transmission: Connecting Power Sources to Customers"

Thanks for the Transmission 101 lecture, but your analogy is false. Transmission towers and lines are not like long-haul truckers or trucks. 18-wheelers deliver their products and disappear. Your 135' steel towers will be there ruining our landscapes continuously and permanently, along with the subsequent towers and lines you will want to build.

"Transmission Line Corridors: More than Poles and Wires"

You write that someone's preliminary research paper shows that cottontail rabbits and certain birds thrive on clear cut ROWs. Really? Even if it's true, are you seriously proposing this as a rationale for Northern Pass? The plague created outstanding job opportunities in 14th century England and on the continent, but the price was tragically, unacceptably steep.

If we could, what we'd finally ask you is, do you truly believe that people will fall for this newsletter?